Healthy Transportation Compact
Meeting Notes & Transcription of Public Comments
August 20, 2014
10 Park Plaza, Conference Room 1, Boston, MA
11:00 AM – 12:30 PM
Healthy Transportation Compact (HTC) Board Members (or designees) attending the meeting:
• David Mohler – Deputy Secretary of Policy/Executive Director of Planning, Department of
Transportation (MassDOT)
• Charles Planck – Assistant General Manager, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority
(MBTA)
• Patty Leavenworth – Chief Engineer, MassDOT
• Secretary John Polanowicz – Executive Office of Health and Human Services (HHS)
• Commissioner Cheryl Bartlett –Department of Public Health (DPH)
• Assistant Secretary Stephanie Cooper – Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs
(EEA)
• Larry Field – State Permit Ombudsman/Director of the Massachusetts Permit Regulatory Office,
Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development (HED)
UPDATES FROM HTC BOARD MEMBERS: (Paraphrased)
Jennifer Slesinger: Introduction of Board Members attending the event. Slesinger will represent the HTC
staff at this meeting.
Mohler: Secretary Davey regrets that he could not be here today. He absolutely would have been here if
possible. This is a good opportunity to announce that MassDOT has begun the work of implementing the
Active Streets program. This program will award funding to communities that implement projects via a
complete streets program. MassDOT will begin the process of meeting with municipalities to establish a
process, and will start making some small seed grants in the near future.
Secretary Polanowicz: The HTC has been a great inter-agency initiative for HHS. The Grounding McGrath
project, and the associated HIA (Health Impact Assessment), was a great early example of this
partnership’s promise. We’re now building off what we learned in the Grounding McGrath study. The
HTC wants to use today’s meeting to give updates from each state agency since the last HTC meeting.
Mohler: Update from the MassDOT Executive Office – (1) We did the HIA for McGrath. We are now
requiring HIAs for every planning study that we do, meaning that HIAs will, at least initially, be in the
scopes for all planning studies. But we need to figure out how to coordinate this new task with our
1
consultants to ensure consistency and quality. (2) The Secretary issued a Healthy Transportation
Directive. For those unfamiliar, this is a standard operated procedure issued by the Secretary to ensure
that all MassDOT projects consider the needs of all users equally. We’ve been working in this direction
for a while now, but this memorializes this effort. (3) We announced Ned Codd as the new Assistant
Secretary for GreenDOT. GreenDOT memorialized our mode-shift goal and the GreenDOT Office will be
working across all MassDOT divisions.
Planck: Update from the MBTA - When people think about green, they often think about transit, and
then about how clean our vehicles are. With each vehicle purchase, we’re increasing the cleanness of
our fleet. But we’re also a very large land owner and energy consumer. The MBTA is taking action to
improve energy efficiency in many small ways across the state in our many facilities. We have 40 new
locomotives coming into service. These are more efficient and meet the Tier 3 environmental standards
for emissions.
The Worchester Regional Transit Authority has 6 electric buses in service every day. The buses are
smaller than what the MBTA uses, but the bus manufacturer is bringing a larger demo bus to the MBTA.
The MBTA is watching Worcester’s progress and will continue considering this opportunity. Finally, the
MBTA is also testing a hydrogen cell fuel bus and a hydrogen fuel facility. There are a lot of
improvements happening in MBTA facilities. We are exploring LED lights for the red signal, which will
last 6-8 years, save energy every day, and could save $1 million after a three-year phase in. We also
have the third rail energy efficiency project which will result in substantial energy savings.
Leavenworth: Update from MassDOT - We’ve taken the HTC policy and worked it into our process, so
that our employees and our consultants could weave it into their design process. We’ve taken our
engineering directive that speaks to design criteria, and added the HTC policy’s design criteria to that
directive. We’ve also established a process for documenting projects that were unable to meet the
design criteria - the design exception process. Challenges to implementing the HTC policy include how to
phase the policy in, since our current projects are all at different stages. This means sometimes we have
to go back and try to accommodate the policy. But overall things are going very well. We are also
reaching out to communities across the state on these new policies; some communities are more
receptive than others to these changes.
Commissioner Bartlett: Update from the DPH – (1) We recently announced the new Mass in Motion
grants. The Massachusetts Legislature dedicated some new resources for Mass in Motion after Federal
funding was cut. The DPH is now funding 22 programs across 60 municipalities. (2) The DPH released in
May a Health Impact Assessment of the Logan Airport area. The study found that asthma and other
pulmonary diseases are in fact higher in the study area, which is exposed to emissions from the airport.
Some corrective and/or preventative measures have already been implemented to address this. This
progress is an example of how HIAs can help mitigate the public health impacts of transportation
projects. However, we realize that not every project needs an HIA, and so we’ve identified three
categories of projects to focus on: roadway projects with significant volume changes, projects that
increase motor vehicle emissions to residents, and projects with the potential for significant mode shift.
2
Secretary Cooper: Update from the EOEEA – To begin, we are so pleased that the Governor recently
signed the Environmental Bond Bill, which will help advance our mission and the goals of this Compact.
(1) We have been working with MassDOT on GreenDOT regulations and we really applaud MassDOT’s
efforts. This will help the Commonwealth track their greenhouse gas reduction commitments and
prioritize projects that advance this goal. (2) We have been supporting EOHED’s efforts in regional land
use priority planning. The EOEEA takes seriously these regional plans and strives to invest consistently.
(3) We have been investing in urban parks and open space. One measure of our success is that a quarter
of the Commonwealth’s population lives within a 10-minute walk from a new park or open space.
Field: Update on two EOHED initiatives, both related to land use. Starting in 2007, the Administration
has embraced “Planning Ahead for Growth.” This means not waiting for development proposals to be
made. The EOHED strategy for planning ahead for growth has four elements: (1) identify areas with
good potential for grow and for preservation; (2) create prompt and predictable permitting in those
areas; (3) invest in those particular areas when state resources are available; and (4) market those
particular areas to developers. An example in the area of investing is MassWorks - a public infrastructure
program that is discretionary, focusing on how infrastructure needs can influence private development.
Our priorities for MassWorks are multifamily homes in mixed-income areas and economic development
in distressed areas.
Slesinger: Update from the HTC staff – (1) We put together the HTC Advisory Council to help coordinate
the activities of the Compact and inform our efforts going forward. The Advisory Council identified five
main areas to focus on moving forward: (1) helping to inform the Project Selection Advisory Council
(PSAC) since health is one of PSAC’s focal areas. (2) the weMove Massachusetts capital planning process
– specifically, scenario planning to look at different buckets of asset categories and how we can
prioritize asset planning, (3) developing guidance for consultants on how to incorporate health analysis
in their projects, (4) complete streets and the Active Streets legislation - we will be revamping training
for complete streets, and finally, (5) how to transfer to the next administration to make sure the
initiative moves forward. The Advisory Council is drafting a report to assist with this transition.
Secretary Polanowicz: The list from the Advisory Council is certainly a doable list of items. Cementing the
HTC policy and process to make sure there’s not a hiccup with the administration change is particularly
important. We want this momentum to continue. Are there any thoughts on how to cement this
initiative beyond the report?
Slesinger: The various initiatives that the Advisory Council is working on will not end with the
administration change. The complete streets training will move forward, as will the Active
Streets legislation.
Mohler: One of the ways this work is definitely going to continue on is through Active Streets.
There are a lot of public and private advocates for this legislation. We’ve made great progress
here, technical language barriers between the public health and the transportation/bike and
pedestrian folks have already been broken down. I think this initiative already has so
momentum that it’s going to survive.
3
Secretary Polanowicz: More so than in the past, there’s a real orderly plan to transition to the
next administration. Consistency of language and collaboration between agencies will be
important in transition plans. We’re trying to make sure these transition plans are different than
previous transition plans - we want them to be truly useful.
Leavenworth: This policy is also already embedded in our daily processes. It would be somewhat
hard to extract our progress at this point.
PUBLIC COMMENTS: (Transcribed from audio recording)
1) John McQueen: I’m John McQueen. I guess this is for David and the Chief and everybody else. I
want to applaud the Healthy Transportation implementation, and the decisions for underpasses
under the Charles River Basin, the community path, and linkages of transit nodes, and the Green
Line extension, etc. It’s huge progress. And I see the Active Streets as perhaps being another,
let’s say soft way, of getting compliance pushed down to municipalities, so there’s a cohesive
adherence to our goals, our designs, and so they flow and they’re not interrupted. Is this sort of
a bonus to the Chapter 90 money perhaps?
a. Mohler: Yes so this sort of addresses the issue the Chief was talking about earlier about
how implementation of complete streets and active streets at the local level is
sometimes lumpy. So this is the carrot instead of the stick. If you do these things, you
qualify for money out of this pot of money. There was at one time a push to actually use
a more stick approach of “all Chapter 90 needs to be complete streets.” Well that had a
snowball’s chance of ever actually getting adopted. So now we have the other approach,
which is: there’s going to be this pot of money set aside, and it’s for active streets
transportation projects, but you can only apply for this pot of money if you meet these
criteria and these guidelines.
b. McQueen: Follow up: Will there be public meetings?
c. Mohler: Yes there will be either rules and regulations or guidelines adopted, either way
there will be public process. There will be an advisory council. But yes there will be a
public process that involves anyone who wants to be involved talking about how this
program should be set up.
2) Wendy Landman: I’m Wendy Landman from Walk Boston and, unlike my usual comments,
actually I just really wanted to say thank you. And I actually wanted to mention some of the
smaller things that are going on in each of your agencies. Just partly for you to hear because
maybe you don’t know about them, and for everybody else in the room to hear because it’s
pretty exciting. For example, at HED the Massachusetts downtown initiative recently added
walkability as one of the topics that communities can get assistance for in their main streets
districts. So that’s just happened in the last month. At EEA, I was at the first meeting last night of
a DCR urban park and parkways committee on active transportation. And what we’re really
eager to be working with DCR on, along with MassDOT and many cities and towns, is pedestrian
4
access to transit and bus stops across the metropolitan area, which is a huge issue and one that
is very fine grained but absolutely critical to get the cross-agency conversation on. At HHS, we’re
working with the agency on the healthy aging initiative, which is supporting walk audits and
building constituencies among seniors in communities around the Commonwealth. The places
that we happen to be working, as the program is working lots of other places, are Weymouth,
Gloucester, and Fall River. Not necessarily the first places you think of, but for example in
Gloucester, the walk audit we did outside of senior housing, it’s a very old street pattern, the
woman in a wheelchair, who lives in one of the senior housing units, the only way she can
literally go down half a block is to get in a car because the built environment that was built three
hundred years ago doesn’t support her. But the fact that the community is looking at this, and
looking at this with the support of HHS, is a huge deal and so when we think about healthy
active aging, it’s really the details count. And finally, at MassDOT, I wanted to mention the
incredibly robust design exception committee, which I attended last week. And I was just so
impressed with the seriousness with which everybody across the agency from all of the different
district offices was talking about the project and really thinking hard about how to make sure
that walking and biking, and where appropriate transit is incorporated, and why the design
exceptions are being made. They really are happening in places where even I can say, yes,
basically, mostly that makes sense. And also the highway safety improvement program, which
we’re working on with, absolutely across the agencies, with the Department of Public Health
and with 13 communities across the state looking at a number of pedestrian and bike safety
programs. But one of the pieces that’s most exciting is that some of the money is going to the
local police for enforcement and education of the public around safe behaviors, and those are
drivers and bicyclists and pedestrians, and really think about that holistically. And so I just
wanted to say that we’re really excited this is happening and hope that it’s embedded and
continues.
3) Colleen McGuire: I’m Colleen McGuire from the Department of Public Health, in the
Transportation Injury Prevention. I just had a question for the Commissioner and David; I
thought I heard two separate approaches to Health Impact Assessments. And I know at DPH
we’re been working around figuring out when it makes sense to do an HIA. And then I thought I
heard you say it’s going to be included in every transportation project, so can you tell me a little
about that?
a. Mohler: Yes, in addition to being the Deputy Secretary for Policy, I’m also the Executive
Director of Planning. So it’s included in all of our planning scopes. So that is the concept
of the early issue. As we’re planning a project, people need to look at the health impacts
of the projects we’re planning. So all of our planning projects basically will fit into one of
the three that the Commissioner outlined. It’ll be a highway project, where we’re
making changes to highway, it will be a transit project, or it will be an airport project. So
I think all of our planning projects will fall within one of those categories and our issue
is, as you’re planning, consider these issues now because if you come along later in
design and say we need to consider this issue, you’ve slowed down the project, you’ve
made changes that the people haven’t considered for funding. You’ve just, you’re
5
coming in too late. So all our planning projects will have HIA as part of the requirement.
And again, if as we develop our guidelines we say that’s a waste of money to have that
project look at HIA. We will just then, you know the scope will have gone out, but we
will just then reallocate the budget and say you know what, DPH and we and the
Advisory Council agree, really you don’t need to do an HIA here. But I’d rather be wrong
and over-require, than be wrong and have under-require something.
b. Commissioner Bartlett: So I think what I would say is that it’s considered in all of the
planning, but not every single project might need to have that extensive of an HIA.
4) Meeting Attendee: I have a question for the board. I don’t know who this should be addressed
to. I live in Saugus and DCR is taking all our sand, but my question is, where there’s the overpass,
and there’s a gate there, and it’s rotting away, which we all know it’s supposed to be 95. Any
plans of using that as a bike path, or a walking path once they do whatever they’re going to do
with that sand to Winthrop, which is costing millions for a police escort every day. When they
straighten that all out, is there going to be a walking path or bike path to go on that, or is it just
going to be a dead issue over there?
a. Assistant Secretary Cooper: I’m not sure I know the answer, but I’m familiar with the
Winthrop project and are you talking about access to Belle Isle Marsh?
b. Meeting Attendee: Belle Isle Marsh, yes.
c. Assistant Secretary Cooper: So right at the end of the highway where there’s that
entrance but it’s not very friendly, is that what you’re speaking about?
d. Meeting Attendee: Right, that whole Revere area, when you’re coming south to north,
that’s really a disaster area, it’s been a disaster for years. But the 95, where they have
the gate and the rocks are falling on it. I mean I don’t know what they’re going to do
about that. Are they going to take it down, or are they going to use it as a bike path or a
walking path?
e. Assistant Secretary Cooper: I’m not sure, I’m happy to find out and follow up for you. I
do, I thought as part of the Winthrop project we were making some improvements to
Belle Isle March, but I’m not sure about that particular aspect of it. I’ve had the same
experience driving by it, thinking we could do better here. So I’m happy to take your
contact information afterwards and get you an answer.
5) Nick Downing: Hi Nick Downing from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. I’m very excited to
hear David announce the MassDOT going to be moving forward with the Active Streets program.
That’s something that we’ve been working on for a while. I was just wondering if you could talk
more about, you mentioned the seed money that might be going out to some cities and towns.
If you have kind of a general idea or ballpark of the amounts you might be looking at. And kind
of what the plan is to buffet up going into future years.
a. Mohler: I believe, and again it hasn’t been officially set in stone, but I believe the seed
money, the total amount is 50 million dollars available. I believe the seed money will
probably begin at the 3, 4, 5 million dollar range. I’m not sure yet when it will begin to
ramp up, or indeed if it will begin to ramp up in this administration’s last capital plan.
6
Yet that may be a decision for the next administration frankly. I believe it will br3 to 4 to
5 million dollars a year, probably, in that range.
6) Steve Miller: Hi I’m Steve Miller from the Harvard School of Public Health. And, like several other
people, I want to congratulate you. It’s astounding to watch the evolution of this from a couple
of early meetings where we had the secretaries from the different offices in a room, each
worried the other was going to out-maneuver them for funding. It’s come quite a ways. A couple
of quick points. You mentioned how you’re now pushing more towards multifamily housing.
Does that include multi-bedroom, as well as multifamily? Because a lot of multifamilies in the
Boston area now are these smaller and smaller apartments that don’t really fit the workforce or
the family needs.
a. Field: There clearly has been a movement toward one and two bedroom units, which is
partly market-driven in an appropriate way. There’s a lot of data showing that
household size is changing and that it’s appropriate to have more one and two bedroom
apartments than we have been supplying before. But, some of the other considerations
are not as benign. There certainly are places where it is a way of avoiding families and
school children. It also can be a by-product of the way the market is skewing, which is
toward the high end or toward the affordable but is subsidized in various ways, and less
in the middle income. So that’s an issue that we’re aware of and the one ways in which
we’ve directly responded to it is - the DHCD (Department of Housing and Community
Development) now has a three-bedroom policy where there’s a project that is seeking
affordable housing resources so a certain percentage has to be three bedroom to
provide at least family housing in the context of affordable units. To get to the technical
question you asked, the governor’s multifamily housing goal is not bedroom specific. It’s
about multifamily housing and housing type because of the immediate demand for that
and the smart growth considerations.
b. Miller: Thank you, a couple quick points. Stephanie mentioned the promoting of trails
and paths around the state and I would urge you to think of them as putting a priority
on those that are useful for transportation. Particularly those within cities or near
commuter routes. I think the recreation stuff is really important, but in a sense that will
flow from the mode shift on the transportation piece. Similarly, the environmental
concept, I know DMUs – Diesel Multiple Units – are big. But diesel is not the preferred
mode of power. And so I think we should be keeping that in mind as we go forward. I
was wondering if, now that we’ve seen that HIAs are useful when used appropriately, if
the other agencies are finding ways to incorporate HIAs, whether it be in economic
development, or housing, or even energy. For example, some friends of ours were trying
to do wind power out on the Cape and got smashed by people claiming that windmills
cause neurological damage, cancer, and other communist plots. An HIA could have
helped early in the process to diffuse some of that. And finally, before I let you answer
that one, I just want to reemphasize that Mass in Motion is in fact policy on the ground.
Given that we have 6 billion separate incorporated entities in the state, each of which
has to approve everything, it’s Mass in Motion that gives us the local constituencies to
7
get through the Chapter 90 resistance. And I’m really very heartened to hear you all
incorporate that sort of language and support into your own agency work. That’s what
makes what each of you do on the state level happen locally. And it’s a fabulous
program. So I’ll just go back to the HIA question and leave it there.
c. Assistant Secretary Cooper: So the piece about energy and HIA? So I think that that’s a
really good point. I think certainly we would say that some of our earlier efforts in wind
could have been more successful if things like acoustics were more thoroughly vetted
and we are doing more of that now. For example, I know the Clean Energy Center and
the Department of Energy Resources now require that, so when a proponent comes
seeking state support, even when it’s just for a feasibility study, we require they do an
acoustic study as part of that. So I think that’s important. Could it be expanded?
Probably. I think it’s a good idea and I’ll take it back. There probably are other
permutations of it that could be incorporated on the energy side – for biomass for
example.
7) David Watson: David Watson from MassBike, a couple of comments, first I want to say, as one of
the advocates who was urging the legislature heavily and building public support for the Active
Streets program, I wanted to reiterate my thanks for validating all of our collective efforts and
actually implementing it. Very much look forward to that and I think it’s going to make a huge
difference by providing incentives to communities to do complete streets. To the Chief, I really
appreciate, having been to several of the design exception review committee meetings now, not
just being invited to be there, but really being welcomed as a full participant where our points of
view and opinions are being taken seriously and are influencing the decisions that are being
made there on projects, which is very welcome and is very appreciated.
a. Leavenworth: We want to thank you as well.
b. Watson: Last thing, coming back to the HSIP (Highway Safety Improvement Program),
it’s really been extraordinary even though it’s just started and I kind of think of it as
we’ve taken the multi-transportation compact actually out into the field. We did the
first bike-ability and walking audits in Wollaston a couple of weeks ago and it was just
extraordinary seeing all the people from a wide range of federal, state, and local
agencies all walking around and talking together identifying issues and proposing
solutions. These are agencies represent lot of the interests of the people here and they
don’t, these people don’t necessarily get to work directly with each other on projects
out in the field on a regular basis. They noted that that experience was perhaps the
most valuable aspect of the whole exercise. We look forward to seeing that in all of the
other communities that we’re doing these projects in.
c. Leavenworth: If I could add to what David just said, that was specifically picked because
it was a transit station and so the walk audit was done at the peak hour to see the
surges. And this project is actually going to be used by the Federal Transit
Administration and Federal Highway so USDOT as a pilot nationally to talk about how to
do this so Massachusetts is once again showing up as a national model for looking at
walking and biking and transit.
8
d. Watson: So I’ll close with a question, which is: What is the plan for having this program,
the HSIP program, continue beyond this year?
e. Mohler: Well first off it is a federally required program with its own federally designated
funding stream, so it will continue. The Chief can probably speak better about its
direction and its continued emphasis on bike/ped, but there is no doubt that it will
continue into the foreseeable future.
f. Leavenworth: I agree, HSIP has been around for a while, but I think what we’re finding is
smarter and better ways to use the funding. When it first came out, it was like what
type of project qualifies and how can we use it. I think we looked at site-specific ways to
use the funding and now we’re finding that we can use that funding for programs and
not just site-specific improvements. It’s been around for a while and we expect it to be
around for a while longer. But I think the key component is the partnering of that
program with our strategic highway safety program, which is beyond what’s available
for the funding program, what are we doing to promote safety. So it really goes hand in
hand with the strategic plan.
g. Mohler: I think the Chief’s point is perfect. Early on, we shoehorned projects into HSIP
funding. They were all eligible, but basically they were all intersection jobs. Not that
they’re not important and not that intersections safety for vehicles isn’t important but
now we have a much more holistic approach of safety isn’t just about: make sure the
cars don’t crash into each other. And I think the work that the Highway division does on
a regular basis is again one of those things that we put in our transition memos, but if in
January, we weren’t working here, it would still go on because everybody at MassDOT
understands and values that initiative and the bike/ped part of highway safety.
h. Lea Susan Ojamaa: I’m Lea Susan Ojamaa from the Department of Public Health and I
just wanted to add that I think this is another example of the Compact being put into
action. I oversee the Mass in Motion program and I think one of things we’ve talked
about is, as much as possible, align these pedestrian and bike safety projects in Mass in
Motion communities because we work in those communities to increase active living
but you don’t just want to do that from the physical activity side you want to make sure
they’re safe while they’re doing it. Again I just think it’s another example of how the
staff from the various agencies are working very closely together and how this is
benefitting the residents of the Commonwealth.
8) Josh Ostroff: I’m Josh Ostroff, I’m the outreach director for the Transportation for
Massachusetts Coalition. I also work with Transportation for American. I’m a selectman in
Natick. I really applaud the work of the Compact and the public health and advocacy
communities to make this happen. This is such an important foundation they we’re laying for
the future and from some perspectives overdue, but we’re only going forward here and I
appreciate, on behalf of the Coalition, the great work that’s been done from everyone. Thank
you all so much.
9
Slesinger: Thanks everyone for coming. I just want to announce that the next HTC meeting will be a joint
meeting with the Advisory Council and the Compact Members. It’s schedule for October 30th at the
Moving Together conference. I encourage everyone to register for that conference, but you may also
just attend this meeting without registering.
10